


Sick Day

by somanyfeels



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Gen, Post-Avengers (2012), Sick Tony, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somanyfeels/pseuds/somanyfeels
Summary: After a PR visit with a local Girl Scout Troop, Tony and Natasha end up with the flu.  Quarantined to Tony's room, they spend the day together.





	Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecarlysutra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/gifts).



> This fic was commissioned by the wonderful thecarlysutra here on AO3 and asked for a happy Tony and Natasha fic. So jere is a fic in that sweet spot after the 2012 Avengers where Jarvis is there and they all live together and theyre sick and make bad decisions and nothing bad happens.

Tony woke up feeling heavy.  Heavier than normal. His head felt nearly stuck to the pillow and his arms felt like the blankets were weighing them down enough that he could hardly move.  He took a deep breath, something catching it in his throat as he tried to exhale, and then his body was wracked with coughs.

 

He was sick then.  It would explain why everything, even his eyelids, felt so difficult to move.  He laid there with his eyes closed, his head sinking into his pillow farther, and his breath scratchy as he let it in and out.  He ached, every muscle in his body felt stretched and battered like someone had grabbed his wrists and another grabbed his ankles and decided to fling him around in a violent game of tug-o-war.  His chest was the worst. Each real and artificial bone of his ribcage and the delicate places were they were fused together felt like they were burning, like he was being stabbed by hot pokers from the fire.  Tony tried to roll onto his side, but his chest seized and he was overwhelmed with another bout of coughs.

 

“Jarvis?”  Tony managed to weaze out when he finally got a breath.

 

“Good morning, sir.  It is April, 28th at 9:23 in the morning.  The forecast is sunny, currently 37 degrees Farenheit with an expected high of 68.”  Jarvis’s voice said, reading out the usual data of the day. “Your body temperature is currently at 102.4.  I would recommend more rest.”

 

“More rest.”  Tony repeated.  His brain seemed to be running slowly, his mind still trying to wrap around the face that it was only 9:23 and yet the sun was streaming in through the windows and already causing his head to ache.  He hated spring. The sun came up earlier and earlier. “Blackout the windows.”

 

Yesterday, he had been fine.  Yesterday he had gone to meetings, he had worked on prototypes, he had done some public outreach for the Avengers.  Yesterday he had been breathing clearly and within the normal amounts of pain. Yesterday he had been shaking hands and posing for photos.  He had met countless new people, whether it was city council members or just fans wanting a moment of his time, and clearly at some point he had picked up something.

 

Something that felt like it was killing him.  If he didn’t move, if he kept his eyes closed and his his body still, his breathing slow and shallow, then he felt somewhat okay.  He felt like if he just rested for a moment longer, let his body calm down from all the coughing and aching pain, then he could get up and get back to work.

 

There was a lot to be done today.  He and Pepper still had a lot of organizing that needed to be done for the September Foundation.  It was new, still in the beginning stages of ideas, but one that made Tony excited. Giving the brightest minds in the country a free pass at innovation, to focus on their ideas and experiments without having it corrupted by money and financial worries.  A free pass at science and design that Tony had grown up with and prospered in. He wanted everyone to have that.

 

There was a knock at the door, steady and calm.  Tony didn’t have the energy to call out to them, let alone get up to open the door.  He was so close to falling back to sleep. Maybe, just this once, he could have a sick day.  Maybe he could. He was too busy for sick days, too busy with too many important things to have the luxury of staying in bed for the day.

 

The door opened.  “Tony? You still alive?”  Natasha asked, poking her head in.

 

“No.”  Tony mumbled out.

 

The light from the hallway spilled into the room as the door opened wider.  Tony could see the glow from behind his closed eyes and his head throbbed, a stabbing pain in the back of his head.  He let out a groan, his arm lifting to cover his face and it ended up flopping there heavily, nearly smacking him.

 

“Bruce said you were when he checked in on you ten minutes ago.”  Natasha said.

 

Tony could hear her, the bottoms of her slippers scraping against the wood floors.  He felt the bed dip under her weight and within moments a bundle of blankets was trying to burrow into his side, burning hot skin pressing against his arm.

 

Tony turned his head to check the clock.  He had been awake for a while, his eyes closed a he tried to push off the heavy feeling of sickness.  Bruce hadn’t been here in that time and Tony hadn’t heard or seen a thing from him. A moment ago, when Jarvis told him it was nearly 9:30, had gone by quickly.  The clock now read 11:48am, nearly two hours.

 

“Have I been asleep?”  Tony asked. His mind was running too slow for him to make sense of everything for itself.  He had no concept of how much time had gone by and how he was feeling. His limbs felt numb, he felt extraordinarily warm but yet he couldn’t stop shivering.  He could still feel Natasha against him, breathing shallow against his skin.

 

“Yeah.  Bruce said you were dead to the world, but of course now that I’m here you’re conscious again.”  She said.

 

Tony groaned, pushing himself to sit up.  Natasha grunted in annoyance, pulling back a bit as he moved.  They hadn’t had any rough missions in a while and nothing more demanded than his usual workout regimes, but still every muscle in his body felt pulled and stretched and weak.  He was tempted to roll back over and fall back to sleep, but they were all too busy for that.

 

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, moving in segments instead of fluid and constant motions.  Tony had to take his time, occasionally squeezed his eyes shut as a wave of nausea would rush through him.  He breathed through his nose and ignored the burning pain at the back of his throat.

 

“You can’t go out there.  We’re being quarantined.” Natasha said, mumbling softly.  It was so strange to hear her voice in a tired, weak tone. Usually she had such control over her voice, how she sounded, the words she said.

 

“What do we have?”  Tony asked, rubbing his eyes.

 

“The flu.”

 

“What?  From who?  Where? Didn’t you get vaccinated?”  Tony asked.

 

“Do I have to explain to you how the flu shot works?”  She asked.

 

Tony groaned, falling back onto the bed.  A thousand different strands of the flu virus and the shot only protects against the most common kinds.  And Tony should have expected this, his long run of bad luck leading up to him sick in bed, his chest aching, pain stabbing through him with each breath.

 

It had been the girl scouts, Tony decided.  He and Natasha had met with a bunch of the girl scout troops in the city, smiling and posing for pictures and promising to send every last one of them to summer camp.  And there had been so many little girls there, so many germs they were passing around to one another. Tony and Natasha had been the only avengers attending, and now they were the only avengers sick and bedridden and quarantined to his bedroom in the tower.

 

Natasha gripped the back of his pajama shirt, dragging him back down against his pillows.  He was more comfortable, his head cushioned and it helped slightly with the throbbing. Natasha grumbled something to him, something he couldn’t quite make out as she rolled over and pressed her back against his side.

 

“Why are you in my bed?”  Tony finally asked. It wasn’t unusual of her to invade personal space, to claim furniture and places of comfort as her own.  There had been times where Tony had taken the elevator up to his floor of the tower and found her on his couch or in his kitchen.  She would find things she liked, whether it was color of tables, the fabric of the sofas, or anything else and then she would claim that furniture as hers.

 

“Because you’re sick.”  She said.

  
“So are you.”   
  
“Exactly, we can’t spread it to anyone else and I was getting bored locked in my own room.”  She said. Natasha wiggled again, getting comfortable in the cocoon of blankets. “Does it hurt?”   
  


“Does what hurt?”  Tony asked. She was changing the subject, but Tony was too tired to care or bother keeping up.  Conversations required too much focus and he didn’t have the energy to understand where it was leading.

 

“Your chest, mine hurts so I can only imagine how you feel.”  Natasha said.

 

Tony hummed.  His eyes had fallen shut so all he did was reach up and lay his hand on his chest.  Above his artificial sternum, the delicate fusion of it against his ribcage, and the missing, torn, and burned muscle and lung tissue underneath.  It was killing him. This flu felt like it was burning, stabbing him again and again, but chest pain had been something he learned to manage years ago.  A constant discomfort in the back of his mind.

 

He felt another hand on his chest, light and small, rubbing gentle circles around and around.  Tony pushed his eyes open. Natasha’s touch was delicate, so soft that he almost didn’t feel it.  She stroked circles, she hummed a soft tune that he didn’t know and wasn’t familiar with. It was peaceful.  He let his eyes fall closed again and all the muscles in his body slowly went limp. He unclenched his jaw and felt a slight ease to the pounding in his head.  He listened to her humming and did what he always did, ignored any pain he felt.

 

This was nice.  Pepper was in California for a little while, he missed her.  Missed the spot she usually had next to him. It was nice to not be alone when he felt so damn awful.  It was nice, in a strange way, that he trusted Natasha enough to fall asleep right there with the intent to sleep off the flu.  She was a spy, an assassin, and their entire friendship started on a foundation of lies and a stab to his neck when he was dying from the reactor and yet he trusted her.

 

He fell asleep.  He didn’t wake up again until he felt a hand tapping lightly on his shoulder.  It was less gentle and more demanding, impatient. It wasn’t Natasha, but Bruce leaning over him and speaking in a gentle, soft voice.

 

“There you are.  Think you can keep anything down?”  Bruce asked, his hand moving to press against Tony’s forehead.  “You need sleep but you also need to eat something.”

 

“Eat?  You want me to eat?”  Tony asked, his throat feeling dryer than before.  It scratched with every word and everything he said came out like a gasp for air.  “Only reason I haven’t thrown up yet is probably because I haven’t eaten.”

 

“Or maybe it’ll help get your strength up.  Nat is eating.” Bruce said. His hands found Tony’s shoulders and arms, gripping hard enough to support him and yet the touch somehow still felt gentle.  Everyone was touching him so softly today, as if he was more delicate than normal. 

 

Tony turned his head to the side and huffed out a weak laugh.  Natasha was still in her cocoon of blankets, one wrapped around her head like a hood, with a bowl in her hand.  Soup. Her bowl steamed and she hummed when she blew at the spoon in front of her face and brought it to her mouth.  The tip of her nose was bright red, nearly blending in with her frizzy, curly hair that fell from the blankets and plastered to her sweaty forehead.  She looked so different from usual, when her appearance and her expressions were carefully controlled. She looked vulnerable, her soup in hand, wrapped snugly in the comforters and sheets of her bed, and when Tony followed her hooded eyes he found her watching some cartoon he didn’t know the name of.

 

“The soup is good.”  She said when Tony finally managed to get himself sitting up with Bruce’s help.

 

“Chicken noodle?”  Tony asked. He tried to peek into her bowl, eyeing the yellow broth hopefully but frowning at the site of a carrot and a piece of celery floating around.

 

When he was handed a bowl, he grumbled about how hot the ceramic was, fully of the steaming soup and he was left to hold it.  Bruce set a tray in front of him, a small bit of stability so Tony wouldn’t accidentally spill the bowl all over his bed. But Natasha was holding her bowl close to herself and so Tony did the same.

 

He tried to follow along with the cartoon she was watching, tried to make sense of it but it just seemed like a few animated, humanoid animals were screaming nonsense at each other.  The volume was turned down but each sound the creatures made was shrill and violent. He grunted, squeezing his eyes shut as the flush of colors seemed to worsen the migraine growing in his head.

 

“You kids going to be okay for a bit?”  Bruce said. Everything was placed within arms reach.  Bottles of water, bottles of Tylenol, crackers and other dry snacks.  Tony eyed the tv remote, strategically placed on his bedside table.

 

“I don’t need a babysitter.”  Tony said, sticking his tongue out.

 

“Of course not.”  Bruce smiled at him, taking a step back.  “Have Jarvis call me if you spill soup on yourself or need help with anything.”

 

Natasha laughed, the soup sloshing around in her bowl dangerously.  She leaned over and placed it down on a nearby tray and then leaned towards Tony, her shoulders shaking under her thick layers of blanket as her laughter echoed in the mostly empty room.

 

“Don’t worry Tony, if you fall down and need help Jarvis will call someone for you.”  She said through her laughter and Tony stuck his tongue out again. He wanted to shove her out of his bed.  He wanted to tell her to fuck off but he found himself laughing as well. Perhaps the fever was making him delirious, foolishly thinking Natasha was actually funny.

 

Bruce left.  As much as he wanted them to get well again, no one had the time to babysit the two of them all day.  They were fine, sick and feeling silly but they had soup and blankets and cartoons that made Tony’s head hurt.  He wanted to reach for the remote, he wanted to change it to something less colorful, something a bit quieter. Natasha was faster though, every time his hand went for the remote it was plucked out of reach again.

 

Natasha was trained to be fast.  He had seen her take things on missions that no one noticed was gone until it was too late.  Launch codes, weapons, or evidence. Today, both of them feverish and weak from the flu, she was still too fast for him to keep up.  Tony was too weak to keep humoring her, letting her taunt him with the remote that she held securely in her hand like a trophy.

 

He would never get used to the cartoons.  He didn’t understand anything happening in them and he didn’t think he would be able to figure out even if he was healthy and thinking clearly.

 

“I don’t watch much tv.”  Tony said. Even if he did get the remote he wasn’t sure what he would do with it.  What would he watch if he had a say? He blinked, his brain finally making a connection and he grinned from ear to ear.  He didn’t need the remote. “Jarvis, turn on the news.”

 

The tv changed and Natasha let out what he could only describe as a grunt of disappointment and annoyance.  It was a quiet news day, had to be since all that was on was a story about a teenager who saved a bunch of baby ducks from a storm drain on his way to school.  A good news day then. Absolutely nothing wrong with the world and two avengers were capable of taking a sick day and eat soup in bed.

 

“You know, I could call Happy and he would smuggle in burgers for us.”  Tony said.

 

“Can you hold down a burger?”  She asked.

 

Tony put a hand on his stomach and turned to look at the soup, the steam slowly rising off of it.  He mentioned earlier that the only reason he hadn’t thrown up was because he hadn’t eaten and that felt accurate.  He weighed the risks against the rewards, the way a greasy burger would make him feel compared to a bowl of chicken soup.

 

“I’m more willing to risk it for a burger than a bowl of soup.”  Tony said.

 

“You’re an idiot.”  Natasha said, a grin spreading across her face and she nodded quickly.  “Get me one too.”

 

“But I thought I was an idiot?  I thought I was some awful dumb sick person seeking out something that I’ll regret almost immediately.”  Tony said sarcastically, already leaning across the bed to grab his phone from the nightstand to text Happy with his special request.  “Jarvis, make sure no one finds out I’m ordering food, they’ll try and stop me.”

 

“It would be in your best interest to eat the soup instead.  Sir.” Jarvis said, voice calm. The ‘sir’ added in at the end and Tony could have sworn it sounded condescending.

 

“I’m an adult, Jay.  I can eat food I like.  Awful disgusting food.” Tony said.  He sent the text and Happy confirmed his prefered burger place.

 

It was definitely a mistake and all of them knew it.  Tony probably had the same thing Natasha did, she probably felt as tired and awful as he did, and the last thing they needed was grease covered hamburgers and fries deep fried in oil.  It would tear them apart, make them sick and miserable and yet the call was made and neither of them said a thing to call it off.

 

Happy arrived half an hour later with two brown paper bags with the grease already starting to leak through.  Two double bacon cheeseburgers with all the fixings with seasoned fries and several packets of fry sauce. Happy didn’t bring drinks, but Tony guessed it was for the best.  The food would be hard enough on their stomach without the addition of soda.

 

Tony handed one bag over to Nat and the other one he had resting on his lap, like a gift for him to unwrap and dig into.  The smell alone almost made him sick, and yet his mouth watered. It was one of his favorite meals from one of his favorite restaurants, he would have it as his final meal if he had the choice.  If it killed him today then he supposed it would count as that.

 

He raised an eyebrow when he looked over to Natasha and saw her picking off the bacon.  “You’re a monster.” He said, horrified as she tossed it back into the paper bag, discarded like trash.

 

“I’m trying to cut back on the grease.  I have some sense of self-preservation.”  She said.

 

“You think it matters at this point?”

 

Natasha looked down at the burger and shrugged.  “I suppose not. Still, this is probably a mistake.”

 

“Yeah, but I’m eating it.  We’ll regret it later, just like I regret going with you to visit the girl scouts.”  Tony said.

 

Natasha laughed again, shaking her head.  “That was your idea.”

 

They did one final, silent prayer that they won’t feel too horrible after eating this and then reached out to gently touch the buns of their burgers together in a mock cheers before digging in.  Tony knew as soon as he started chewing that this would be the worst decision he ever made. Right now it was delicious, a secret meal he had while sick and held up in bed with Natasha, something that would only make them sicker.  They ate, watched the annoying cartoons, hummed happily with their food.


End file.
